This is a tutorial of the RV.Net Forum Toolbar. There are 16 icons as shown in this example:
This toolbar is available in New Topics, Reply to Topic, Advance Post Form, Private Messages, Preferences for Signature text or by clicking on the Quote link above each message.

It is not available in Quick Reply. You can however, use the codes in Quick Reply but it is best to confirm the post and edit it if needed. You have approximately five minutes to do so after which there will be a line added as "* This post was edited 09/10/05 11:10am by membername *".

Folder and Save icons. Perhaps the least used and understood are the first two icons, that of the folder and save. You can draft a message or reply, click on the second or Save icon and it will be stored for you in your folder on this website. Next, click on the first or folder icon and it will bring up what it contains such as this:

Try a test by clicking on Reply to Topic, type a few words and click on the Save icon. Now open your folder and there it is waiting for you to "load" into a new message/reply, private message or delete. This is handy in another way such as saving a prepared text for sending to more than one member in a private message. Please note however that per forum rules, you are not allowed to post the same message in multiple forums without permission from one of the Open Roads Forum moderators.

note: "Save" does not append the previous saves of the same name so review your folder and delete old saves often. Once "loaded", it will be removed from your folder.

Preview will open a smaller window showing exactly how your message will appear including colors, quotes, e-mail address, bullets, smiley's, etc. The links will be active so you can test them (recommended) and pictures posted within the text will also be shown.

It is always a good idea to right click on a posted picture and select Properties to confirm that the pixels are within the recommended 640 width and 480 height as exceeding either could get your picture edited or deleted by a moderator. It is also a good idea to stretch the preview window sideways to get a better idea of how it will fit after posting. This is done by putting your cursor on one side and dragging it sideways.

Keep in mind that because of the many screen resolutions, the way it displays on your monitor may be different for someone else. See Screen resolution for pictures in text for more information.

Note: signatures will not appear in Preview so to see yours, click on your Profile in a post. Signatures appear only once per page.

Because some browsers have their own integrated spell checkers and the availability of free solutions for browsers that don't have, I don't think the forum's spell checker will be fixed. In fact, I've requested that the spell checker icon be removed from the message window tool bar.

If you use IE, you may want to try Speckie or iespell. Both are FREE and works faster than the forum's checker ever did.

Spell Check. Those that use word processors and e-mail for correspondence are familiar with a spell checker. You have that powerful tool here, not only in creating a new message but private messages as well and it is very easy to use.

Here is a screen print of the toolbar and the Spell Check popup. Note the little icon with the ABC and the checkmark. Click on it before posting your message and if no errors found, it will say so. In the example below, I misspelled the word "explaination" and got the popup not only with the correct spelling but possible alternates. Try it sometime!

You can program your Spell Check to ignore single letters commonly used within the 4UMS code. Copy and paste the following line of letters into a reply and then click on the Spell Check ABC icon.

b i u d o b c e m p r w z

The Spell Check will stop on each one of those and you can click on Ignore or Ignore all. The next time you use Spell Check and have single letters such as those, they should be ignored.

Bold Text. Typing a left bracket, the letter "b" or "B" followed by the right bracket turns on the Bold feature. Typing a left bracket, a right slash and the "b" or "B" again followed by a right bracket turns it off.

Italics Text. Typing a left bracket, the letter "i" or "I" followed by the right bracket turns on the italics feature. Typing a left bracket, a right slash and the "i" or "I" again followed by a right bracket turns it off.

Underlined Text. Typing a left bracket, the letter "u" or "U" followed by the right bracket turns on the Underline feature. Typing a left bracket, a right slash and the "u" or "U" again followed by a right bracket turns it off.

Colored Text. Typing a left bracket, the name of a common color such as red, green, blue, etc. followed by the right bracket turns on the Color feature. Typing a left bracket, a right slash and the name of that color again followed by a right bracket turns it off.

[red]THIS IS RED[/red] results is THIS IS RED

Along with black, which is not really needed, here are the colors that have names that are recognized by the display engine.

redbluegreenyellowpurple

The Color Editor box will allow you to produce many more colors by pasting or typing the text and selectiong the color you want.

As you can see in the top right box, the color is converted to a hexadecimal number. Virtually any color you can think of can be entered there by number and there is a chart of them H E R E. Just make note of that color number and insert it in the upper right box of the Font Color Editor.
Note: "white" is also a color available which can be used for periods, underlines, etc. to simulate spacing that will not show on the white background and only slightly on the light blue.

The Quote icon allows you to insert a box containing quoted text within a posted message. Clicking on it will produce this Editor box:

which will result in this:

Member X wrote:this is how a quote will appear in your text. It is not necessary to copy and quote the entire text, just that portion of it that supports your reply.

If you leave the "Enter person you are are quoting (optional)" line blank, it will simply say Quote at the top.

Another way you can do this is to click on the "Quote" link which is above each post. That will automatically open a Reply to Topic complete with the toolbar. That quoted message will be pre-formatted with the members name as well as all of the 4UMS code inserted.

Unless the entire post is relevant to your comment, you can remove all but that portion of it. You can also add an additional quote within that quote by following the procedure above, adding it immediately after the last "{/quote }". To make it easier to find the additional text to quote, a simple way is to click on the "View topic" link above the message window. That will open a popup of the entire thread starting with the first message. Simply highlight the portion you want quoted and enter it into the Quote Editor as explained above.

note: a line space will automatically be entered following the display of a quote. To minimize blank lines, start your text or reply immediately after the last "{/quote }".

Link is symbolized as what I affectionately refer to as a bowling ball and swim goggles. This is used to insert a clickable link into a text message to a website, photo album, topic or reply within this forum. Clicking on the icon will produce this:

Enter the complete link in the top box and the bottom box gives you the option of how it will display such as this: which will result in www.RV.Net

Above each topic and reply is a Link button. To obtain the URL for an individual link or reply, clicking on it will produce this:

It comes up already highlighted as shown so you need only right click on it to copy that url (or keys ctrl and C) and paste using a right click and paste (or keys ctrl and V) in the above Link Editor box. For more information on keyboard shortcuts, see Microsoft Keyboard Shortcuts or Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts for Apple/Mac computers.

As a sidenote, the link you post will carry the URL of the portal you are signed in to. Anybody clicking on that link will have to sign into that same portal in order to reply to it....

Here are three ways to obtain a link to a website, web page, photo album or picture:
1. From your Favorites listing, right click on the title and select Properties. This will bring up a window with the "Target" URL highlighted. Right click on it and select Copy or Copy Shortcut. Save it to a NotePad for backup until you paste it to the Link Editor.

2. While at a website, page or photo album, right click on your browser address bar and select Copy or Copy Shortcut. Save it to a NotePad for backup until you paste it to the Link Editor.

3. To get the URL of a single picture, bring up the enlargement of it, right click and select Properties - the URL will be in the middle of it. If it is short and ends in file type .gif or .jpg, highlight it, right click and select Copy. If you do not see the file type, triple click on it, right click and select copy and in either case, save it to a NotePad for backup until you paste it to the Link Editor.

Want to use a picture or graphic as a link? Here's how.
1. right click on the picture or graphic and select Properties.
2. highlight the entire URL of the picture, right click and select Copy.
must contain the file type ".jpg" or ".gif" at or toward the end of it; paste to a NotePad until done.
3. Click on the Link symbol and paste that URL in the larger box under Description, preceeded by "[img ]' and ending with "[/img ]"
4. Paste the URL of the link you want it to point to in the top box.

I used the RV.Net logo for this example:

this is what that will produce:
clicking on that logo will take you to the home page of RV.Net